Power

Gavel Drop: The Roberts Court Takes Up Abortion Rights

While lawyers fight over a clinic shutdown law before the Supreme Court, Congress and President Obama fight over a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia.

While lawyers fight over a clinic shutdown law before the Supreme Court, Congress and President Obama fight over a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia. Shutterstock

Welcome to Gavel Drop, our roundup of legal news, headlines, and head-shaking moments in the courts.

Did you hear? There’s a Supreme Court case on abortion rights being argued this week. We’ve got you covered.

Rural hospitals across the country are closing maternity wards because they are too expensive to operate, forcing patients to drive further distances for routine prenatal exams and to deliver.

Three California women are suing a government-funded foster home for allegedly denying their right to reproductive health care. According to the plaintiffs, the foster home staff accompanied the women to OB-GYN visits, denied them condoms and birth control, and punished them for even trying to access contraception.

President Obama explains why it’s his constitutional duty to nominate a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia.

Meanwhile, the Senate resolves not to even bother listening to whether or not President Obama might eventually nominate someone to replace Justice Scalia.

But as it turns out, one-third of all presidents have appointed a Supreme Court justice during an election year.

Just how hard is it to run an abortion clinic? Let these providers tell you.

Who needs law school when you can just get elected to the Missouri legislature and serve for two years instead?

A state court judge won’t let media access the arrest file for accused Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Lewis Dear Jr., so Dear is talking to the media all on his own. In his latest chat with a local outlet, Dear said that he would plead guilty and justified the rampage, which killed three people, on his false claim that Planned Parenthood clinics are “selling baby parts.”